Budapest II: Jews, dirndls, and cultural appropriation

Budapest II: Jews, dirndls, and cultural appropriation 

There's so much to see in Budapest but at this point in my life, I've seen so much shit that I barely every just go somewhere because people go there.  It has to seem like it will be special.  There are ruins in obuda (old buda) and i don't care.  There's opera and theater and concerts and churches and anything typically European one might like to look at but I'm just not terribly compelled to do any of it.  I always get to some point in a month long vacation where I'm just over playing tourist, and I think this is where it hit.  I want to get some sun and drink some wine and eat some Hungarian shit.

There's a couple of problems here.  There are plenty of parks but I hate sitting in the grass.  So there are benches, fine.  But I like being in the sun and the heat, and justin hates it.  So that's a little pointless.  Also, justin isn't a day drinker and I'm not a big night life person.  So that didn't really work so well, and it really wouldn't have anyway because even when I day drink I'm gonna have only one glass of wine before I just want to take a nap anyway.  Justin can drink with the best of them.  I just figured out that even though I'm not a crazy beach goer, I didn't plan enough beach on this trip... only the Black Sea a couple of weeks ago and a few days at the lake in Germany.  The beach Is the perfect thing for us because he can sit under the umbrella while I lie under the sun, and he can watch my things so I can swim.  

So we instead decide that the next day we'd go to one of the many spas in town.  They're old as fuck, well preserved and huge.  They have outdoor and indoor pools and hot tubs of varying temperatures, just like an ancient roman spa castle.  I pick the most expensive one, Geller, still costing less than $20 a person, figuring there would be the fewest number of nasty backpackers there.  Also, some of these places are segregated by sex but this one isn't.

It's amazing and clean and not too crowded and everyone is quiet and there are plenty of children but unlike spa castle, the kids don't treat it like a playground.  Unfortunately, it just happened to be the coldest and windiest day we've seen on this trip, only about 60 degrees, so my dream of lying on a lounge chair and working on my tan while justin hides from the sun with his Ursula LeGuin novel was thwarted. 

The one thing I really wanted and needed to see was the main synagogue, just steps from our Airbnb.  It's huge.  Often when I get to a tourist monument I look at the price and decide if  it's worth it.  We walked past it accidentally  and considering it was very hot outside, we decided just to go In.  Justin asks how much the ticket is.  I don't look and I don't care, because I'm going to this synagogue, but I joke that I'm sure it's a lot because my people are like that.  

This would be one of only about a million inappropriate jokes about Jews justin and I make on this trip, under our breaths.  This is my birthright, and justin has been with me long enough that he gets permission by association.  

I wasn't wrong.  I don't remember what it was but I for Budapest it was pricey.  Reparations don't come cheap.

So there are signs we have to cover our shoulders and our legs, and of course this is the one day I haven't packed my Pareo that I carry around for this purpose.  Right then there, of course, on the day I didn't bring my pareo for covering my bare shoulders or legs.  They sell a blue paper surgical gown to wear that covers you from neck to ankle.  At mosques they just loan you something.  But of course, my people charge for it.  It's only about a dollar.  But still.  Dicks.

The tour (in multiple languages) of the synagogue and small grounds and memorial comes with admission.  We latch on to the already started English speaking tour.  This poor young guide.  He's giving an explanation of what happened to the Jews in Hungary and he's being interrupted by some Polish dude who feels the need to give his own historical perspective including an anger-tinged explosive "we had it worse than you!  In Poland they destroyed everything!"

That was our cue to leave that tour, free or not.

The synagogue is spectacular.  The architecture is mostly moorish, but it's not a Sephardic synagogue.  The designer wanted there to be a mix of styles, which we learned afterwards.  Justin and I had just decided the Jews just found some nice abandoned church or mosque and took it for themselves.  

Inside the synagogue, There are different countries' flags placed intermittently that represent the language the tour is given in.  An older man is giving another tour in the English area, and he has also already started, so we sit down quietly and out of the way so as not to disturb him.  He's in the process of explaining what Shabbos is, and what the rules are for having and using no electricity during that time.  I'm guessing that this discussion went on for some time before we arrived because one girl asks, "what about texting?" And the guy responds incredulously "NO!  No TEXTING!  No.... just... no texting.  No texting!" He repeated it over and over like he couldn't even believe this moron would ask.  It was a true Larry David moment.

Budapest is truly lovely.  We drank at a "ruinspub," an outdoor pub made out of a space that was formally abandoned.  We went to the parliament, one of the most spectacular buildings I've ever seen and watched the sunset.  

Justin also found us a really awesome bar next to the bridge that felt like a grittier DUMBO.  It is where i learned I do not like schnapps.

I decide to look for thrift stores.  I love them.  So does justin.  But Im Pretty sure that there's nothing I'm going to like here.  The thing that makes Manhattan thrift stores so great is that there are really rich people who really love excess.  So there's usually really great shit that rich people have gotten bored of, or have barely ever worn.  But I have a feeling that there's a lot less of that here.  I find a branch of Humana, one of the European chain goodwills, and I go there when justin is sleeping.  So I get up bright and early and get a Slice of Esterhazy torte and gently place it in my purse for later. And I walk to the store.

My suspicions were confirmed.  Very clean; not one of those vintage stores that smell like funk and moth balls.  Just not my taste. It was a hipster paradise: long old lady print skirts or multicolored polyester tops that totally could have been thrown together artfully if you're into and good at that.  But I'm not.  And this particular location's pricing scheme is as follows: every 5 weeks stock is rotated.  The first week, everything in the store costs one fixed price.  I don't know what it is, but stupidly cheap.  Then as time passes, the price goes down.  The day I arrived, everything in the store was $4. Didn't matter if it was a skirt, a blouse, a dress, or an army jacket.  Hipster paradise.  But not for me.

Except one thing catches my eye: A DIRNDL.  you know, that German dress that has the corset up the front with a plunging neckline that ladies wear at Octoberfest? 

Now, I LOVE a costume.  I collect them and recently I've taken any opportunity possible to wear a costume at work to commemorate any holiday.  When I decided we were going to Germany and Austria, I told justin not to worry: I wouldn't be shopping for dirndls.  Because as cute as they are, I've done my research, and those beautifully made traditional dresses can be a good couple of hundred dollars.  I'd make that shit myself for that price.  I even have a pattern that I saved long ago for a dirndl blouse, which I actually made, still have, and never wear, and leiderhosen at home.  

But a $4 dirndl?  One that looks like it's never been worn?  Yeah.  I'm into that.  And they've got a number of them.  Only a couple of them have that lace up front, all way too big except for one that fits me at the waist but not even close at the boobs.  Way too small. (Justin later says: pretty sure that's a kid's dress.  He's probably right.). I decide to get it anyway, because a quick inspection shows a good 1-inch bias-tape bound  seam allowance along both sides.   seam allowances are the parts of your clothes on the inside that are "extra" after sewing the seams of the fabric.  On cheaper clothes, they are not bound, and usually the seam allowance is only about 1/4".  The generous seam allowance on this dirndl indicates that the manufacturer intended for it to be let out for the inevitability of that person growing out of it.  Fuck, even if i can't manage to alter it myself, I'll give it away.  It's FOUR DOLLARS.  I like to consider myself cheap, but generous.

Fitting me perfectly is a dress that looks a little more "renaissance fair" than than dirndl, but it's got a tag that says "rose dirndl aus Bayern" so I figure I just don't know shit about dirndls.  The bodice is flaxen-colored linen, embroidered, and off the shoulder lemon yellow sleeves and a full yellow skirt.  It's amazing and so well made and I must have it even though i really don't know anything about what I'm buying.

And I snag one of those white blouses for under the dirndl, even though it's a size 42 European and I'm probably a size 34 and even if I were a size 42 I'd never have the tits it would take to fill this thing.  I can just pin it in the back.  It's adorable, and now I know that a traditional dirndl blouse is actually a crop-top and has a gathering string down the cleavage to show a little more if you wAnt.  This is important research.  

And for some reason, there's a magnificent, calf-length, 3/4 sleeve, scoop neck African multicolored dress that is so gorgeous, fits me so perfectly, I have to have it.  Also, FOUR FUCKING DOLLARS.

**Aside but important: I LOVE LOVE LOVE African dresses.  Like, when I see one, my heart actually skips a beat.  Every year, I go to the annual Dance Africa show and bazaar and there's so many (mostly) people of color who come in traditional African dress or African fabrics made into modern dress, and I am so jealous.  I just think everything is so beautiful.  But I stop myself from buying anything, or making anything from the fabric (which is very easy to get in Manhattan) because there's a whole cultural appropriation stigma about white people taking traditional brown people stuff and claiming it for their own.  When I do African dance, I wear an African print lapa (sarong) because that's what you're supposed to be wearing but I've always stopped at buying an actual dress because I don't want to be THAT white chick.  I don't want to disrespect people who I have a great amount of respect for.  I like to think of myself as "woke" enough but in reality I don't think I deserve or should wear something African.  

But at this year's african bazaar I finally broke and bought not one, but two, African cloth sleeveless tops because they were just too cute and fit me too well, so I bought two prints that looked the least "african" so maybe no one would call me on my cultural appropriation bullshit.  

But this dress.... it's full length and has 5 bright as the sun colors and it's so obviously African....  I thought about it all day.  Will I ever have the balls to wear it?  It's completely appropriate at dance africa because it's Brooklyn and I think it's understood that even a white woman wearing the print is showing respect, admiration, and paying homage to the incredible event tradition of that event.  

I work in a Westchester town that very mixed racially but kinda in a Westchester bubble and not super "woke."  I'm guessing that most kids, even the vast number of African-American kids we have, will even know that the dress is african fabric.  I'm sure most of them will think that I'm just wearing a dress that has way too many bright colors all at once.

I bought it and I'm going to wear it, I've decided, and I'm going to be a wreck the whole time.  I have a traditional Vietnamese ao dai that I wear without self-criticism, why is this different?  Just the other day, the internet blew up over a white child dressing up as a geisha for a japanese tea themed party.  I see both sides, and I think it comes down to the fact that there's a very fine line between homage and appropriation.  I'm just hoping my colleagues of color will give me a pass on this one.  It's not like I'm wearing a traditional suit with the matching turban and corn rows?  I'm crossing my fingers and apologizing in advance.  At least I'm culturally appropriating the Germans, too, right??**

Ok, back to dirndls.  Bargain hunting is like a drug... once you find something great, you need more.  So try to find other branches of humana for more $4 dirndls.  The next day I try, but it's in vain, because the one listed on google doesn't even exist.  In the meantime, I do some dirndl research and it seems that dirndls are just traditional costumes (trachten) and come in many forms, not just the lace-up kind.   Salzburg, Austria seems to be the dirndl capital of the world, and Bavaria (Bayern) is where my yellow one came from.  And, as I figured, there's all sorts of levels of quality to be had but they're worn by ladies in restaurants, Oktoberfest participants, and by other people unironically for reasons I just don't know.  

So I go back the next day.  Same store, more dirndls.  Looks like they keep re-stocking.  And the price has gone down.  $3.  At this point, I'm buying dirndls without even trying them on, and buying one that is clearly cheap costume-quality because I'm going to give it to my school's German club as a gift to wear at their fundraisers.  They hold a popular fundraiser every year, selling pretzels and sausages and one kid gets to wear a dirndl and another, leiderhosen.  Now they'll have more. The German teacher is super nice and really well loved and has invited me to sit in her class to learn with the kids and I bet she'll love having this for her kids.  I somehow manage to find some restraint and not buy all of them, but mostly because I figured that kids aren't going to want to wear the single colored, full length, non-lace-up dirndl.  Also, I only brought a carry on.  

At this point, no exaggeration, my bag is half full of dirndl and African dress.  Good thing I pack light.  

Later in the evening, Justin spots a restaurant called khachapuri, named after a type of juicy, large, Georgian dumpling.  We love Georgian food, and it seems that we find a georgian restaurant almost everywhere we go.  Justin is really excited because they have chacha, a kind of Georgian eau-de-vie that he loves and is almost impossible to find in the US.  Justin orders a khachapuri appetizer, and a chicken stew for his main.  I picked a salad and The same main.   Justin, who's been to Georgia, is a resident expert and bitches every time something isn't right.  It's the most foodie he gets.  He gets annoyed when I pronounce khachapuri wrong (which I always do), he gets annoyed when the meat doesn't taste right, when I eat the nipple-looking top of the dumpling he's discarded (they're doughy and my favorite part... in Georgia you're not supposed to eat them.  Thats how the waiter keeps track of how many you've ordered, like toothpicks in a tapas bar in Spain.).  Our mains come, and justin asks about the khachapuri.  The waiter scoffs and says "I know," even though it didn't come before the chicken dish.  The khachapuri arrive moments later.  He totally forgot and tried to play it off.  In the meantime, the group of Russian tourists behind us are arguing that they ordered fried dumplings and not steamed ones.  Justin scoffs at their choice of fried over steamed.  My salad never comes.  We have to practically beg for more wine and chacha.  I'm positive from what justin tells me that THAT never happens in Georgia.  It first seems like this guy hates us... we change our minds and decides he hates his job.  

That was the only time we got bad service anywhere in Hungary. 

We wind up at a karaoke joint back in our neighborhood.  The joint is JUMPING.  Every backpacker and stag party member was there, and us.  Songs are picked from an iPad left unattended in the middle of the room.  Everyone is singing, so no real point of getting up to the mic because no one can hear you over anyone else.  No matter.  We can't quite figure out which buttons to pick after our selection, so justin never gets to sing his song (a jazz standard that he would have killed but would not have been appreciated by the consortium) and I pick a couple but only Rihanna's S&M comes up.  I run to the mic, and so does some pretty young girl.  I said "did you pick this too?" she says "no, but I like it!" Ok, girl, in America that shit wouldn't fly but I'll give this one to you.  When in Rome.  It's a crowd pleaser.

If you go to enough karaoke bars in New York, you see very quickly that no matter who is there, it is guaranteed that you'll hear the same karaoke hits.  Someone will have probably picked your song, because your song is everyone's song.  And in Europe, it seems, the same rules apply, but for completely different songs.  Justin says it's because the English is easy to understand and learn.  All I know is that a whole room of presumably straight dudes were unironically belting out Cher and Madonna.  Europe is a place where your gaydar compass is just completely off, and this is only one of the reasons.

Karaoke alley is also arcade alley, and we got a real kick out of playing some DDR-like game that replaced dance pads with conga drum pads.  And my favorite, air hockey, which justin always indulges me in.  I guess I'm old-school.

Inexplicably, there's a conveyer-belt sushi place in the gaming arcade and justin is super excited about the prospect of going there.  Our beloved conveyer-belt sushi place across the street from our apartment close a year or so ago, and we used to go there about once a week.  A devastating loss.  

There's literally not one person eating in there.  I tell him he's crazy... we're not eating at a sushi restaurant with sushi already made ono a conveyer belt that no one goes into.  He protests... maybe it's not the right time, maybe it's a late night thing, yadda yadda.  I roll my eyes.  These aren't fights, not even heated discussions.  But a lot of poor Justin's vacations are spent with me telling him he can't eat here or there for myriad reasons. Sometimes I let Him win and I am forced to admit that his decision was a good one.  

But this one, I put my foot down.  We were leaving the next day...was it really worth risking food poisoning just to eat sushi at this empty restaurant??  He really wants to argue with me on this one. 

FINE.  At least a drink.  We'll go in for a drink and look. 

We get to the bar.  There's literally no patrons, no workers.  The two workers are sitting at the conveyor belt, completely unfazed by our presence and in no rush to serve us.  It was if they themselves couldn't believe anyone would want anything.

I give justin a look... he looks at the dishes going around the belt... there's nothing in them and there's a small case with a couple of sad looking pieces of sushi.  He's finally convinced.  We walk out, and no one stops us.  Justin then thanks me profusely for not allowing us to eat there.

Instead, we go to an all-you-can eat restaurant that I also previously said no to.  It's about $22, and includes all the beer and wine you want, which is a pretty good deal if you really want to eat all you can eat.  I never do, and "all you can drink" for me is 2, maybe 3 glasses of wine before I am a disaster.  But, justin did the research, said it seemed good, and we really hadn't tried a ton of Hungarian food at this point.  Also, the place was packed, and by the time our 40 minute wait was up, I was starving.  

We are and drank like we hadn't in a week.  They come out and ask us if we want pizza as an appetizer, and Justin's eyes light up like a kid in a candy store.  It was surprisingly delicious, a little like a fake DiFara's with less cheese and sauce but thin with a really good crust.  They had soup, cold cuts, and everything else was some form of meat in heavy sauce and potato or dumpling side.  It was above average cafeteria food but with excellent service.  Our waiter, at the end, asked us where we were from, and when we said New York, he brightened and said "oh!  Do you have an American car?  I have one! " I don't remember what it was but it was from the 70s and he was super excited about it.

And then I drunk dialed my parents for my dad's birthday.

Budapest was lovely.  I leave feeling like I've left some things  unfinished, like I didn't party enough or see enough shit or spend enough time baking in the sun at a spa.  I would enjoy a return trip.